Customer Reviews

The Generals Of Gettysburg Appraisal Of The Leaders Of America's Greatest Battle

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This book is a comprehensive listing of all officers (brigade-level or higher), both Union and Confederate, who fought at Gettysburg. It provides a brief synopsis of their careers prior to the battle, the role they played in the battle itself, and a concluding synopsis of their careers afterwards. Its scope is all-encompassing: no officer of any significance is omitted (to my knowledge). The book is most informative, and I found myslef reading it constantly for weeks after I purchased it (and since each entry is essentially self-contained, one can read brief snippets at a time and still glean valuable information). The author also provides short bibliographies for each figure as well. As the first reviewer has noted, its main shortcoming is organizational: it has a brief table of contents and no index (and given the nature of this book, I cannot understand why this was omitted). The photographs included are also of uneven quality; indeed, some are quite fuzzy. The maps are generally sound, but are relatively few in number (only nine). These factors notwithstanding, I rate the book highly because of the considerable research that went into it and its overall value as a source for all interested in the battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War in general.

This is a good concise guide to the line generals (and colonels) that served with the Army of Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. It gives background information on every commander of units down to brigade, how they got to command their unit, what they did in previous battles, what happened during the Gettysburg campaign and what happened to them afterwords. It is by no means a substitute for a good narrative to the battle or any part of it but it has a place in anyone's library on Gettysburg.

I bought this book as a reference book. The profiles on each officer were well done and contained much information. However, there is no index in this book and only corp commanders are listed in the table of contents. Unless one knows the corp in which a particular officer served, it makes it very difficult to find any information. It is difficult to use as a reference. The book contains no footnotes, end notes, or a bibliography. The suggested readings at the end of each profile were helpful.

This would be a great reference book if not for the same tiring rethoric about Gen. Longstreet. This book was published in 2003 and references the more recent works by historians that show Longstreet was not responsible for failure of the attacks on the second and third day. Makes you wonder if the author suffers from a acute case of Lost Cause tunnel vision.